Forests serve numerous functions for this planet and its inhabitants. As the ‘lungs of the earth’, they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and release oxygen.
Intact forests thus serve as carbon sinks, regulating the earth’s carbon dioxide levels.
Forests also provide critical ecosystem services, such as the prevention of soil erosion and flooding, the regulation of precipitation, the cycling of nutrients and a reduction in air temperatures.
Forest loss constricts options for forest-based livelihood in rural areas; exacerbates land erosion and river degradation; species decline and extinction; and climate change that results from the release of carbon as trees are cut down.
Forests clearly provide essential and under-recognised ecosystem services required to sustain our planet and its inhabitants. Forests in Africa are being lost at an alarming pace.
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Whereas deforestation has been slower in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) than in some other regions, it is accelerating rapidly with population growth.
According to some reports, SSA has lost approximately 99 million hectares of forest since 1990, roughly 13 percent of its 1990 forest area.
Globally, deforestation has been occurring at an alarming rate of 13 million hectares per year.
Deforestation is recognised as a major driver of the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. It also disturbs natural processes such as biogeochemical, hydrological and ecological cycles.
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Deforestation is known as one of the most important elements for changes in land use and land cover.
In Malawi, deforestation is estimated to be responsible for the loss of 33,000 hectares per year and this is the highest deforestation rate in the Southern African Development Community region, representing a net loss of some 30,000 to 40,000 hectares per year.
Malawi, being a developing country, is keen for change; as such, there is enormous pressure exerted on its forest resources each passing day.
This forest loss is mainly attributed to agricultural expansion and excessive use of biomass, such as wood, charcoal and agricultural residues mostly used for cooking and heating.
That is biomass accounts for 88.5 percent of the country’s energy demand, 6.4 percent comes from petroleum, 2.8 percent from electricity (hydropower), and 2.4 percent from coal.
Agriculture is a source of livelihood for more than 90 percent of the rural and urban populations and represents more than three-quarters of national exports.
The expansion of subsistence agriculture to meet the food needs of the burgeoning population has been one of the main drivers of deforestation in Malawi.
In commercial farming, tobacco is one of the major export crops and accounts for approximately 67 percent of the export earnings from agriculture in Malawi.
However, the percentage of deforestation caused by tobacco farming is very high.
Tobacco is further ranked as the highest user of wood among non-household users in Malawi. It involves the use of wood and twigs in the construction of barns for air-cured tobacco and firewood for fuel-cured tobacco.
The construction industry is also heavily reliant on wood energy for brick production and is ranked second to tobacco in this regard. The brick-making industry alone consumes approximately 850,000 metric tons of wood per year. That is, biomass in the form of wood fuel is the largest form of primary energy consumed in Malawi.
There are three land categories in Malawi: public land, private land and customary land.
Customary land, which is held under customary law and under the jurisdiction of the customary traditional authorities, makes up around 85 percent of the total land in Malawi.
Under customary land, forest resources are usually most accessible to the majority of the rural residents because they provide not only timber and fuel wood but also non-timber forest products for both rural and urban populations.
To tackle the challenges of deforestation and forest degradation, each country should devise a sound and robust environmental strategy.
The strategy should focus on improving community forestry management, conservation and enhancement of forest carbon stocks and sustainable management of forests and development of forest protection schemes, among others.
Additionally, deforestation rates vary significantly within each country and furthermore, an understanding of the causes of such dynamics and unique variations is critical for the establishment of proper interventions.
